Empty Chairs
by Penelope Cross
Summary: Quinn comes back to Lima for a visit and doesn't believe it when Sam tells her that Santana and Brittany broke up. She decides to have a talk with Santana. Quinntana friendship.


It's so odd to her, standing in the choir room again.

Truth is she never wanted to come back, not after what happened.

What she did.

She stands by the piano, staring at the rows of chairs. Her eyes go immediately to the back row, the seat she sat in for the craziest, happiest, most miserable, amazing three years of her life.

I used to sit back here and count the number of times you'd smile at me…and die on the days you didn't.

She sucks her lips into her mouth, chest tightening. She never wanted to come back to this place and see how it's still exactly the same, but so completely different. How the piano sits in the same place but isn't nearly as shiny as she remembers, how Schuester's office is still just as cluttered but infinitely smaller, how there are the same amount of chairs and the trophies aren't as impressive as she remembers.

Shoes, the clack of shoes behind her.

"You wanted to see me?" Santana asks, wiping at her eyes, hoping her make up hasn't smeared.

"Remember how we joined Glee," Quinn asks, her voice sounding different, far away, her eyes unfocused, staring at the rows of chairs.

"You made me."

Santana turns and can't help but smile softly at how this Quinn standing before her is nothing like the Quinn four years ago at Cheerios camp. How she's lighter, brighter, how she smiles instead of scowling.

She wonders how different she looks.

"Remember how much we all fought and cheated and hated each other."

Santana nods once, looking down.

"But when we got on that stage we were a unit, we forgot about everything and it was about the music and the friendship. It was about being who we wanted to be. We found ourselves in this club."

"We're not on that stage anymore, Quinn; we're in the real world."

"I know, and it's not easy, but don't you remember how far this club brought us? Don't you remember who you were three years ago?"

"I remember," Santana says, the image of her fifteen year old self flashing to the forefront of her mind. Brittany. Love for Brittany, wanting Brittany, not knowing why, fucking Puck to make it go away and wanting Brittany harder the next day.

"Can you imagine who we would have been without this stupid club?"

A world without having had any of Brittany. The thought is enough to make her eyes begin to water again.

"What's your point?" Her old bite coming out so easily, a tone she hasn't used once in Louisville.

Quinn smirks, her old smirk. "Why are you throwing all of that away?"

Santana doesn't say anything. She stands with her back to the chairs.

"Sam called me, says she hasn't stopped crying."

Santana shuts her eyes and turns, inhaling a breath, trying to still the quiver in her hands, the churning in her stomach, how her heart feels like it's breaking all over again. "Quinn…"

"She's been inconsolable," Quinn says with a hand on her hip. "Sam says she just wanders from classroom to classroom and spends her free time in Glee club notes on math or some weird language, no one really knows what she's doing," Quinn says. Santana watches Quinn's eyes move up and down her, look her over as if she's a completely different person. "What the hell happened?"

"It wasn't working, Q.," Santana says, wrapping her arms around her body and taking a few paces away from Quinn, eyes landing on their trophy from Nationals.

"You're throwing it all away because you're scared. You're that scared fifteen year old who was so in love with Brittany and so afraid of it she didn't know what to do with herself."

Santana doesn't say anything, she turns farther from Quinn.

"It's not supposed to be easy, if it was everyone would do it, Santana."

She feels her eyes sting, her shoulders shaking.

"That girl's heart is broken."

She blinks furiously, throat tight. "Fuck, Quinn, stop."

"Why, Santana? You finally got it, you finally got it, you got the girl you dumbass."

She turns sharply. "But what if it isn't enough," she asks, her hands flutter nervous in front of her, wanting something to hold onto, wanting Brittany to hold on to. "What if it isn't enough and she finds someone else. That girl in the library, it was so easy just to smile at her and I would never cheat on Britt, but what if, fuck, I don't know Quinn." She wipes at her eyes, hating herself for crying in front of Quinn, but so glad it isn't anyone else.

"You're so stupid," Quinn says, smiling at Santana like she's a child. She takes a few steps forward and pulls her into a hug. "You're so, so stupid. Brittany is a zombie and you're an emotional wreck. What about this feels right?"

"Nothing," she sobs into Quinn's shoulder. "Nothing feels right."

"Then why?" Quinn asks softly into her friend's ear, holding on tight.

"Because I'm afraid. I'm still afraid, everything is so much bigger now," she cries. Her body shakes, her chest so tight she thinks she might implode.

Quinn pulls away, holding Santana at arm's length. She locks their eyes together. "Santana fucking Lopez. We are not those scared girls in Lima anymore. We're not the head cheerleaders, we're not Sue Sylvester lackeys. And you're still madly in love with Brittany S. Pierce. And she loves you, too."

Quinn sees it click in her eyes.

"I messed it all up," Santana says, tears in her widening eyes.

"Then go fucking fix it," Quinn says, staring hard at her.

A moment of silence passes, Santana pulls Quinn into a tighter hug. She sniffs, pulls away and wipes at her eyes. She moves across the choir room, stopping at the door. She looks at the rows of chairs, at Quinn. "Thank you."

Quinn shrugs. "It's what we do."

When the sound of Santana's quick steps disappear and the choir room goes quiet, Quinn exhales slowly.

It's so odd how she can see herself sitting next to Finn, holding his hand, then sitting alone and pregnant, then sitting next to Sam, then in a wheelchair. She smiles softly, remembering the day she found out she was going to Yale and how the first thing she wanted to do was share it with the people who used to fill the now empty chairs.

She thinks about Brittany and Santana.

She hopes Santana figures it out.

She moves to the doorway and looks back, eyes sweeping the choir room.

She never knew she could be so shaped by other people. She never knew she could feel so bittersweet. She flips the light switch off and moves down the hall, hands tucked in her pockets.

She knows she'll never come back here.

And for some reason, it's the greatest, scariest feeling in the world.


End file.
